Tim Hetherington in Libya: witness to war – in pictures

Tim Hetherington in Libya: witness to war – in pictures

James Brabazon looks back at the previously unpublished final shots of fellow photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed this year in Libya, where he was continuing his exploration of the ideas and imagery of young men at war. The bright, flash-lit portraits of fighters are part of his evolving attempt to understand how and what the rebels thought of themselves

Yet although this is a portfolio of work created by an artist perfectly in control of his medium, and not a memento mori, Hetherington’s death does inform this work in one crucial aspect: it is unfinished. Though he took these pictures to be looked at, he would not have edited them in this way, nor published or captioned them in this manner. →

In Libya, Hetherington was still exploring the ideas and imagery of young men at war. The bright, flash-lit portraits of fighters are part of his evolving attempt to understand how and what the rebels thought of themselves – but it is hard for us to make sense of these images in the way that Hetherington would have. What he left behind are his trademark signposts to the visual landscape of war – blast-twisted buildings, bloated corpses, the dash for cover – but what we cannot, ever, see is the ultimate horizon beyond these frames that Hetherington saw, and was working towards. →

This project began with the young rebel soldiers he met in Liberia, and continued with the US soldiers he filmed and photographed in Afghanistan’s deadly Korengal Valley. Hetherington was rapt by these young men and in turn by their own attraction to war, but as close as he got to the fighting and the fighters, he never became one of them, nor wanted to. The images published here illustrate his role as a privileged, self-conscious observer: the long shadows of the men with cameras in the Misratan sun; and the self-portrait, with camera. But his eye does not quite meet his, our, eye – as if he is not yet ready to look into the lens himself. As well as observing young men at war, Hetherington is trying to observe himself. It is this honesty, this personal unease perhaps, that helps make his work unique. →

Men with guns; men with cameras: Hetherington understood the brutality of war and, critically, its fascination. These pictures reveal by turns its bravery, beauty, bravado, boredom, banality. There is no sentimentality for the conflict, the country or the young men’s roles as rebel, victim or aggressor. Hetherington’s comprehension of the condition of war was profound, and in losing him we understand less about war and what motivates young men to wage it. →

Along with a handful of photographers of his generation, Hetherington grasped the nature of war so well because he respected it. He was a cautious, careful professional – assessing risks and making informed judgments about his security and the safety of those around him. →

But what Hetherington developed uniquely was his own understanding of what it meant to be a witness, and how to interpret his role as spectator. It’s telling that he chose to shoot these photographs on colour negative film with a large, medium format camera. There are only 10 frames on each paper-backed roll of film – technology that has not changed since the 30s. Shooting like this slows you down. Each picture is a conscious decision. For a moment the war stops, and is constructed as a single, formal frame. →

He shot in Libya in the same way as when we worked together in Monrovia in 2003 – taking photographs of the Liberian rebels in combat with government soldiers. Once, trapped in a car during an ambush that had already killed several people around us, Hetherington handed me a roll of shot film while he silently loaded another. As high-velocity rifle rounds tore up the vehicles on either side of us, he calmly took pictures of the attackers through the window, one careful frame at a time. →

Making pictures like that was the essence of Hetherington: in Libya he placed himself at the centre of the world’s biggest news story, and chose to shoot photographs in such a way that they had no immediate news value. By separating himself from the more reactive work of his colleagues, he freed himself, and us, so that we might not only look, but see.